Pre- and postnatal household air pollution exposures and pneumonia risk: Evidence from GRAPHS

Chest. 2021 Jul 20:S0012-3692(21)01363-5. doi: 10.1016/j.chest.2021.06.080. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTBACKGROUND: Nearly 40% of the world's population is exposed daily to household air pollution. The relative impact of prenatal and postnatal household air pollution exposure on early childhood pneumonia, a leading cause of mortality, is unknown.RESEARCH QUESTION: Are prenatal and/or postnatal household air pollution associated with pneumonia risk in the first year of life?STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: The Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS) enrolled 1,414 non-smoking, pregnant women prior to 24 weeks gestation with prospective follow-up to child age one. We measured 72-hour personal household air pollution exposures, indexed by carbon monoxide (CO), four times prenatally and three times postnatally. Weekly fieldworker surveillance identified ill-appearing children for physician pneumonia assessment. We employed quasi-Poisson models to examine associations between prenatal and postnatal CO and physician-diagnosed pneumonia and severe pneumonia. Sex-specific effects were examined.RESULTS: Of the 1,306 live births, 1,141 infants were followed with 55,605 child-weeks of fieldworker surveillance. The estimated risk for pneumonia and severe pneumonia in the first year of life increased by 10% (RR 1.10, 95% CI 1.04-1.16) and 15% (RR 1.15, 95% CI 1.03-1.28), respectively, per 1ppm increase in average prenatal CO exposure and by 6% (RR 1.06, 95% CI 0.99, 1.13) per ...
Source: Chest - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Source Type: research